Note The SharePoint Online Public Website information in this article applies only if your organization purchased Office 365 prior to March 9, 2015. If you purchased Office 365 after March 9, 2015, use an Office 365 website hosting partner.

If you have an Office 365 public website, it has an initial URL that is something like www.contoso-public.sharepoint.com, where contoso is the name you chose when you signed up. To rename it, you first have to add a domain to Office 365, and then you can change your Office 365 website address to a friendlier name.

Why rename your Office 365 website? So customers can access your site by using a familiar domain that you already own or a new domain that you’ve chosen and purchased for your business. Be sure that you design and set up your public website before you change the URL to use your domain name—for example, by adding your company name, logo, and business information.

The steps you’ll follow to rename your public website depend on two things:

Which Office 365 plan you’re using. If you have an Office 365 Small Business plan, which is no longer available for purchase, there’s a separate set of steps to follow. If you have a different Office 365 plan, follow the steps in this topic.

Whether you or Office 365 manage your domain’s DNS records. In the setup wizard where you add your domain, you choose whether to have Office 365 manage your domain’s DNS records or to keep managing the DNS records yourself at your current DNS host. You’ll follow different steps in this article, depending on which option you picked. (Learn more about how your domain’s Office 365 records are managed.)

These steps do not change the name of your team site, because you can't rename a team site in Office 365. Your team site name stays
yourcompany.sharepoint.com.

If you haven’t done so already, set up your domain with Office 365. To get started, on the Admin page in Office 365, click Domains, and then click Add domain. Then follow the steps in the setup wizard.

Now, back on the Admin page, click Public website, and then, under Manage your existing SharePoint public website, click Get started.

Choose Start now.

Choose either Yes or No (it doesn't matter which one you choose here) when asked if you have a public website you're using, and then choose Next.

Choose Step 4, Change your website address to www.yourcompany.com.

For the question Are you ready to change the address of the website you created in Office 365?, choose Yes, and then click Next.

In the Select a domain drop-down list, select the domain you want to use, then click Next.

If you haven’t done so already, set up your domain with Office 365. To get started, on the Admin page in Office 365, click Domains, and then click Add domain. Follow the steps in the setup wizard to set up your domain.

On the Admin page, click Public website, and then, under Manage your existing SharePoint public website, click Get started.

Choose Start now.

Choose either Yes or No (it doesn't matter which one you choose here) when asked if you have a public website you're using, and then choose Next.

Choose Step 4, Change your website address to www.yourcompany.com.

For the question Are you ready to change the address of the website you created in Office 365, choose Yes, and then click Next.

In the Select a domain drop-down list, select the domain you want to use, and then click Next.

You will do this on a new tab in your browser, and rename your public website there.

Select your public website, like contoso-public.sharepoint.com.

On the ribbon, click Rename Website.

In the Rename your website dialog box, in the New domain drop-down box, choose your domain, like http://www.contoso.com.

Click OK.

Back on the tab with the wizard, click Next.

On the Add these DNS records page, you’ll see a CNAME record to add for your domain at your DNS host. Use the following values for the CNAME record (these may not match what you see on the wizard page):

Host name: Use www.

Points to address: Use name.sharepoint.com, where name is your custom domain name. For example, contoso.sharepoint.com.

TTL: Use 1 hour.

If you need help adding the record, go to the step-by-step instructions link, and choose your DNS host from the list.

If you rename your Office 365 website, you can change the site name later to use another custom domain or change back to the original URL, like contoso-public.sharepoint.com. To do this, change the CNAME record (as described in the earlier steps) to point to a different domain name, such as going back to the original domain, like contoso-public.sharepoint.com.

The steps above help make sure users can see your website when they type, for example, www.contoso.com. If you also want them to see your site when they type just the root domain, contoso.com, contact your DNS hosting provider and ask if they have a URL redirection service to direct traffic from contoso.com to www.contoso.com. Most providers offer URL redirection, and you can check their documentation to learn how to set it up.